Hurricane Ridge Kennel Club Agility Trial

April 3/04

It was a great day on Saturday, as we only did one day of trialing.  Despite my earlier gripes about the weather in Seattle.  The first outdoor trial of the year in Western Washington, had perfect weather, sun, temps in the mid 60s.  I am really, really happy about how Al ran!  We didn't get any ribbons but I can live on both his runs this weekend for a long time!!

JWW Run

Al's Open JWW run was really fun, and very, very fast, and had the crowd very excited!!  Before we ran I told Heather that I wanted to get a time under 30 seconds, and Al did!!!   27.49. The only problem was that he popped out of the tunnel.  If he hadn't come out of the tunnel, he would have been even faster, because he had to stop, turn around and then chase after me, which took more time than if he had done the tunnel.

 Al ran the course at 5.02 yards per second which is fast!!  The course time was 46 seconds.  Al’s time was 27.49 and was 18.51 seconds below course time. The next fastest of all the Open dogs had a time  5 seconds slower, but also didn’t qualify as it missed a jump. There were 41 Open dogs at the trial.      

 What happened at the tunnel was my fault because I didn’t run the tunnel the way I had planned.  I had planned to send him into the tunnel and then move along the tunnel a couple of steps and then turn toward and run toward the last two jumps.  Because Al was running so well and so fast, I hurried and just pivoted and ran away from him right after he entered the tunnel and he popped out thinking he was supposed to follow me!!  I didn’t see it as I was looking for him to come out the other end, and when I heard the crowd all gasp at how our perfect run had ended, Al was already over the next jump on his way to the finish line.  As far as I’m concerned Al had a perfect run even if he didn’t qualify.  He doesn’t know how to read a score sheet!!

What is really nice about what is happening out here with Al, is that everyone at the trials want to see him run, and are really supportive, vocal and happy when he does well. 

 Anyway, he ran at over 5 yards per second, which is really good, and worked well at a distance, and did a great full speed rear cross!!   He was sooo excited as we ran, I could hear him whimpering with excitement!!

 Standard Run

We're “snake bit” in standard!!!  Al's Standard Run started out great!!! Just after he landed the jump before the weave poles, Al inhaled either a fly or a bee!!!??  At the time I didn’t know what had happened, except that he stopped, stood still, and then shook his head and hacked and hacked, and hacked some more.  Then out flew a bug!!  He stood a few more seconds, and then continued on to the weave poles, and started to hack and shake his head in order to clear his throat; stopping for an instant in the poles between 1 and 2, and then he continued on to the teeter and hacked and onto the table and was still hacking and shaking his head, taking a long time to sit.  The judge was concerned.  We got to the dog walk and he was so preoccupied with everything else he had a refusal, and from then on he had a great run.  We checked him for a bee sting after the run, but he didn't seem to have anything wrong, but the poor little guy was really put off his game by whatever flew out of his throat!!  He finished with 2 refusals, and after all the time he spent dealing with the bug in his throat, he was only 2 seconds over course time. If he had been scored with just one refusal, then he would have finished his Open Standard title.   Dang!!!!